A Democratic legislator is criticizing the Louisiana House of Representatives’ leadership for their lack of transparency about the chamber’s selection of a future state ethics board member.

The full House must approve its appointees to the Louisiana Board of Ethics. Yet only one person, former state lawmaker Mike Huval, a Republican from Breaux Bridge, was nominated for the House’s board seat that opens up in 2025.

With no competition, Huval, a longtime friend of Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, will win the post by default.

State Rep. Candace Newell, D-New Orleans, claims more ethics board candidates weren’t proposed because House members were in the dark about the nomination process. State representatives didn’t realize they could submit their own picks for the board until it was too late to do so, she said.

“I don’t like the fact that other members of this body didn’t have the opportunity to put forth nominations for this seat,” Newell said Thursday during a House and Governmental Affairs Committee meeting on Huval’s nomination.

“I hope it’s a more transparent process in the future,” she said.

The ethics board selection process changed dramatically this year after the governor and GOP legislators rewrote the state laws concerning its makeup. For years, Landry has had a strained relationship with the ethics board, which has cited him multiple times for campaign finance and ethics law violations.

In previous years, leaders from Louisiana’s private colleges and universities vetted ethics board candidates and put forward a short list of nominees to the governor and legislators for the 11 ethics board seats. The House and Senate then held elections to choose from those candidates to fill their board posts. Previous governors picked their appointees from the lists the college leaders compiled.

With the law change, the governor and lawmakers now pick their board appointees directly without the involvement of the college administrators. The board has also been expanded to 15 seats.

The House and Senate will still hold elections for their six board members, but it’s unclear how candidates such as Huval get on the ballot. Landry and legislators didn’t include a new process for picking the ethics board nominees when they rewrote the law earlier this year. 

Newell said House members were never solicited for nominations or given information about how the new board selection process would work. 

“If this is the only stop, we need to make sure that we have multiple candidates that are in front of us,” she said.

Previous ethics board candidates also came with more thorough background checks, Newell said. In the past, she was given reports from Louisiana State Police and the state Department of Revenue on nominees before a committee interview took place. 

Rep. Beau Beaullieu, R-New Iberia, said he personally put forward Huval’s name to House Speaker Phillip DeVillier, R-Eunice, for the ethics board seat. 

Beaullieu, chairman of the House and Governmental Affairs Committee, chastised Newell for not doing the same. 

“You have had since April or May to talk to the speaker about a nomination,” he told Newell, referencing when the ethics board overhaul legislation initially passed. “You had all the opportunity after the bill passed.”

Beaullieu also said he went out of his way to ensure transparency in the ethics board nominating process by holding a committee hearing on Huval’s selection. The law doesn’t require the House and Governmental Affairs Committee to interview candidates ahead of time, he said.

In addition to being a former legislator, Huval has ties to the governor that go back three decades. 

Landry and Huval are both from St. Martin Parish. Landry’s first political job was working for the St. Martin Parish Economic Development Authority in the mid-1990s at the same time Huval was serving on the St. Martin Parish council. 

Despite Newell’s objections, she and the other House and Governmental Affairs Committee members endorsed Huval for the ethics board seat without any objections.

Newell said she personally likes Huval, who served in the House from 2010 to 2024, and thinks he will do a good job in the position. 

“This is not about you,” she told Huval. “This is about how this process has happened and taken place.”

PASS CHRISTIAN, Miss. (WLOX) – A rare meeting between Mississippi and Louisiana leaders happened at the Pass Yacht Club on Thursday for a joint work session to discuss ways to protect coastal waters.

The meeting comes as lawsuit after lawsuit against the United States Army Corps of Engineers has failed.

The fight against the Corps isn’t new, but Mississippi Lieutenant Governor Delbert Hosemann called the meeting ‘historic.’ Representatives from six Coastal Mississippi cities, Harrison County, and Lieutenant Governors from Mississippi and Louisiana gathered to demand change from Washington, D.C. on how flooding and diversions from the Mississippi River are being handled.

“Now, we’re down to having what I would call the realistic expectations on how we would arrange the lower Mississippi River Valley to ensure our shrimp, oysters, dolphins, and tourism don’t collapse every time we have a flood,” Hosemann said.

Pass Christian Mayor Jimmy Rafferty organized the meeting because he believes the only way change can happen is if both states work together.

“This was a true work session where by both states are working together and we’re building bridges with the corps of engineers and hopefully come up with the right action plan to save the sound,” Mayor Rafferty explained.

At the heart of the issue, Louisiana Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser said, is the Army Corps of Engineers making decisions that should be handled locally.

“I think the Corps needs some fundamental changes to where they’re doing what the local people want them to do and we don’t have to fight to do the right thing to save our coast. Our economy, our fishing industry, our way of life. Louisiana and Mississippi are on the same boat on that. Give the local governments, the local states the money to do their own thing. We can do it quicker, cheaper, and we’ll do the right thing because it’s our people we’re protecting,” he said.

As the meeting was underway, oyster fishermen could be seen from the window of the Pass Yacht Club — a reminder to everyone at the meeting why they are on this mission.

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More than 1,000 slot machines are being loaded onto the Live! Casino & Hotel gaming floor this week in Bossier City as Cordish Co. prepares to open its new Louisiana resort.

The big question: When will the jackpots begin ringing?

“We’re still on target for early 2025,” Joshua Robinson, vice president of marketing, told USA Today Network Thursday without revealing the specific target date. “We’re getting closer and closer every day.”

Construction on the $270-million project continues for all phases — casino, event spaces, hotel and restaurants — as well as the hiring of 750 permanent employees.

“When the first (slot machines) hit the floor, this became an active gaming space,” said Robinson, which means specific security has to be in place and nobody under 21 can go onto the gaming floor even during construction. “Seeing these machines coming onto the gaming floor is another milestone.”

Robinson said the slot machines represent the favorite gaming consumer brands in the industry, from Dragon Cash to the traditional Double Diamond.

In all, the casino will offer 47,000 square feet of gaming space.

Live! will be the first land-based casino in the Shreveport-Bossier market.

Cordish’s top executives have promised that the new Live! Casino will be a destination resort that will attract conventions and tourists from beyond Louisiana’s borders.

“It’s going to have a quality and energy that when you walk into this property, you’ll feel like you’re in a premier casino and resort in the top gaming markets, including Las Vegas,” said Jon Cordish, a partner with The Cordish Companies, in a previous interview with USA Today Network.

The available jobs are posted at Louisiana.LiveCasinoHotel.com/Careers and include positions in every operation of the resort, including hotel, gaming, finance, marketing, human resources, information technologies, food and beverage, facilities, security and surveillance and more.

Robinson said customers will experience “a wow factor” when they walk in the door, from the gaming floor to the entertainment venues to the restaurants like The Prime Rib and Luk Fu.

“It’s going to be a fully immersive entertainment destination,” he said.

More: New Bossier City Live! casino posts 750 new jobs: Here’s how to apply

Greg Hilburn covers state politics for the USA TODAY Network of Louisiana. Follow him on Twitter @GregHilburn1.